This country was founded on the principle of individual freedom. Freedom to do, be, worship whatever you want. It doesn’t matter if it is choosing what type of healthcare you want to buy or what type of lightbulb you want brighten your day. Freedom to allow individuals to make their own choices is what has made this country the most dynamic and successful country ever. I voted for the candidates who I believe embodies this ideal. One candidate believes that Washington knows best what cars we should drive, what types of insulation we should have, what health care we want. Fundamentally, he believes that a few people can make decisions for all of us. The other candidate knows based on real world experience that individual decisions made in the marketplace of ideas result in the best outcomes. Or put another way as Ronald Reagan said “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is our problem.”

The second reason is fiscal responsibility. Today even if we don’t want to admit it we are at a crisis point fiscally. We have $16 Trillion in acknowledged debt, we have a Medicare system that will fail in the next few years and an unsustainable social security system. Our current leaders refuse to talk about these challenges. This administration ignored their own deficit reduction commission and rather than trying to work together ridiculed Paul Ryan for even bringing up the subject. He has stated that “Romney’s math doesn’t work”. Well, Mr. President, that may be up for debate but what isn’t up for debate is your math. We can’t discuss it because you haven’t even submitted your homework.

For the last century this country has been “The last best hope on earth” and I believe that it can continue to be. I can see hope in my international students who come here because they know this is the place where they can pursue their dreams. To them it still is the land of opportunity. I believe Mitt Romney, Scott Brown and Sean Bielat have shown that they will take these issues seriously. They will allow us to pass on to our children a dynamic and resourceful place that will continues to be the last best hope on earth. That is the least that I can do for Cat and Alex.

Back when we were building Streamline, we had a Board Member (let’s call him Jim) who advocated that we occasionally mess up a customers order on purpose. When the customer complained we would then ride to the rescue with a guy on a motor bike all dressed in yellow who would swope in and save the day. His logic was that the customer would be so relieved that we would make this huge impression and the customer would love us forever.

I think of this because today we got power back after Hurricane Sandy. It was only off for 24 hours but that was long enough for me to realize how much we rely on electricity and I am grateful for having it back. So does this make me love NStar more? Should NStar take away power for every customer for 24 hours every year? Absolutely not. I can only think about how they screwed up the whole recovery effort. The hurricane wasn’t their fault but how they handled the response left a lot to be desired. I won’t go into that here but that brings me back to Streamline. Was Jim right? No way. Our goal was always to fulfill a perfect order for the customer but when things like a big snow storm intervened and forced us to cancel deliveries our customers weren’t happy but they acknowledged how much they loved us and relied on us. Then we moved mountains to get our customers their orders as quickly as possible. When the mistake was ours they weren’t so forgiving.